2016 Journey Prize Finalist

J.R. McConvey
“How the Grizzly Came to Hang in the Royal Oak Hotel” Published in EVENT

About the Story

“How the Grizzly Came to Hang in the Royal Oak Hotel” by J.R. McConvey is a story about a discharged soldier who has returned from Afghanistan and is tasked to take down a bear that has been brought into a hotel for a film shoot. It’s a story that packs a variety of punches, which the writer manages to deliver in just ten pages. There is tragedy. There is humour. There is cold ambition. There is mourning. There is gain and there is loss. Most significant, there is the story that ripples beneath the words on the page, allowing us to explore it on our own terms. With McConvey, readers are in very good hands.

About the Author

J.R. McConvey is a writer from Toronto. His short fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review, Joyland, The Dalhousie Review, The Puritan, and other publications, and has been shortlisted for a Matrix Lit POP Award and the Bristol Short Story Prize. He is also a documentary producer, whose work includes the award-winning National Parks Project, and an occasional poet and journalist. He recently finished his first novel.

About the Magazine

One of Western Canada’s longest-running literary magazines, EVENThas been an avenue for the very best in contemporary new poetry and prose since 1971. The magazine is published by, and affiliated with, Douglas College, a non-profit public institution of higher education based in New Westminster, British Columbia. With an aim of finding and supporting fresh new voices, each issue of EVENT includes high quality fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and book reviews by emerging and established writers side-by-side. EVENT gratefully acknowledges financial support toward editorial and production costs from Douglas College, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, the British Columbia Arts Council and the Government of Canada.